Lawyers for Thomas Arthur filed an appeal with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Arthur’s attorneys argued a federal judge in July prematurely dismissed Arthur’s challenge after misapplying a requirement for inmates to name an alternate execution method.“Absent this court’s intervention, Mr. Arthur will soon be executed without having been afforded the chance to prove that Alabama’s method of execution is highly likely to subject him to agonizing pain,” lawyers for Arthur wrote.

We are encouraged that it appears to have become almost automatic that attorneys representing a defendant in a capital murder case ask the Court in a separate motion to declare the death penalty section of the Alabama Capital Murder Statute unconstitutional. Who would have thought that only a couple of years ago? Obviously Alabama still has a way to go but at this point we do see the cup as half full, not as half empty, not always easy with the national negativity that we are drowning in right now.